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Biography of Antoine Lavoisier | Famous Scientists.

Widely credited as the “father of modern chemistry”, Antoine
Lavoisier was a French chemist and a central figure in the 18th-century
chemical revolution. He formulated a theory of the chemical reactivity
of oxygen and co-wrote the modern system for the nomenclature of
chemical substances.

Early Life and Education:

After having a formal education in law and literature, Lavoisier
studied science under some of the most well-known figures of the day. He
helped develop the first geological map of France and the main water
supply of Paris in 1769 at a young age of 25. This earned him a
membership of the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1768. The same year he
managed to purchase a part-share in the ‘tax farm’, a private tax
collection agency.

Contributions and Achievements:

Lavoisier started working on such processes as combustion,
respiration and the calcination or oxidation of metals in 1772. His
influential research helped discard the old prevailing theories which
dealt with absurd combustion principle called Phlogiston. He
gave modern explanations to these processes. His concepts about the
nature of acids, bases and salts were more logical and methodical.
Lavoisier introduced a chemical element in its modern sense and
demonstarted how it should be implemented by composing the first modern
list of the chemical elements.
His revolutionary approaches helped many chemists realize the
fundamental processes of science and implement the scientific method.
This proved to be the turning point in scientific and industrial
chemistry. Lavoisier was hired by the Government to continue his
research into a number of practical questions with a chemical bias, for
instance the production of starch and the distillation of phosphorus.
Louis XVI arranged the Gunpowder Commission in 1775 to ameliorate the
supply and quality of gunpowder and cope up with the inadequacies which
had affected France’s war efforts. Lavoisier, as a leader of the
Commission, presented its reports and monitored its implementation. He
dramatically increased the output so that France could even export gun
powder, which turned out to be a major factor in France’s war effort in
the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.
Lavoisier also applied his scientific principles to agriculture when
he bought some land at Frenchines, near Blois, central France. His
efforts bore fruit after short span of time and he described his
observations in the 1788 book “Results of some agricultural experiments
and reflections on their relation to political economy”, which is
considered highly influential in agriculture and economics.

Later Life and Death:

Regardless of his extraordinary services to the nation and to
mankind, Antoine Lavoisier’s connections to the fax agency proved to be
fatal to him, for he died in May 1794 during the reign of terror. The
Revolutionaries guillotined some 28 tax farmers, including Lavoisier and
his father-in-law.